Rise of the Machines: Challenging Comte’s Legacy with Mechanology, Cybernetics, and the Heuristic Values of Technology

Abstract

This essay is about the rise of the machines against the legacy of Auguste Comte, or, to be more precise, against the classical picture, that associated with positivism, of modern technology as a mere application of science. I examine how and to what extent three French philosophers pursued non-Comtean insights into the relations between science and technology: some decades before the emerging STS wave that swept in as the 1970s wound down, they lent their attention to original aspects of these relations, acknowledging specific features of technology within a rationalistic view of science. With respect to the legacy of positivism, these three philosophers, Pierre Ducassé, Georges Canguilhem, and Gilbert Simondon, are most significant. To begin, I give an overview of their non-Comtean insights in the institutional context of the Institute for the History of Science and Technology; then, I move focus to their respective interests for cybernetics as an emblematic reference with respect to those insights. The question of why the latter did not evolve into an explicit research agenda, despite their convergence, is raised in the conclusion.